A doomed breed—the state’s last coal miners

Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 26, 1974

A song from the 1950s runs through your head as you turn off the Kent-Kangley Road and head up the hill to the last operating coal mine in the state of Washington. It goes:

“Where the rain never falls, and the sun never shines

“It’s dark as a dungeon, way down in a mine …”

The future for most of the 15 men still mining coal at Palmer Coking Coal Company’s underground operation is darker than the black coal they dig from a thousand feet below the earth’s surface.

The company is phasing out the mining operation. It probably will be closed within a year. An era and a way of life will have passed.

“I don’t know what I’ll do when the mine closes,” Bill McLoughry, a coal miner for 34 of his 54 years, said. “I’ll have to get another job—but it won’t be mining. This is hard, dangerous work.”

The men were at the end of their shift yesterday, having earned a hard $44 to $47 for the day’s efforts. With muscles and drills and back-breaking work they had mined coal from a 17-foot-wide seam deep beneath the hillside on which they stood.

In the changing shack they peeled off dust-encrusted coveralls and shirts. Their long underwear was almost a startling white against the grime of their hands and faces. They put the work clothes on hangers and raised them to the ceiling to dry after a day in the stygian damp.

In the showers they laughed and kidded each other as the grime—and some of the fatigue—was washed from their bodies.

The talk centered on beer, the matter of the moment, and coal mining, a profession with which they have a love-hate relationship.